BuyWell.com, the first fully integrated Health and Wellness Marketplace in Canada, has introduced BuyWell Care. The new program is the country’s first guaranteed issue Medical Cannabis Coverage Plan and Medical Cannabis Savings Calculator.

By inputting the form of cannabis and dosage the calculator recommended to them into the BuyWell Care calculator, patients can determine how much they can save on their medical cannabis while purchasing coverage plans through the online application process. The coverage included in the program includes treatments that use cannabis oils, dried flowers, and gel capsules.

“BuyWell Care’s inclusion of coverage for medical cannabis is a true example of the paradigm shift that’s sweeping through the medical landscape,” said Dr. Ira Price, MD, FRCPC, and medical director of Synergy Health Services. “It’s a breath of fresh air.”

Research and findings from Synergy Health Services suggest that BuyWell Care Consumers may realize savings of up to $5,700 per year on their medical cannabis, depending on their province of residence.

“For hard-working Canadians who rely on medical cannabis as part of their treatment regimen, BuyWell Care’s Medical Cannabis Coverage Plan provides a revolutionary way to save money on their expensive medication,” said Amanda LeBlanc, co-founder of BuyWell.com.

Buyers in Ontario can immediately avail of coverage; for those in other provinces, coverages will be available beginning in Q1 of 2019.

If you want money advice you can trust, your best bet is to hire a fee-only financial planner . The trick is finding a planner who’s willing to be hired for a reasonable fee.

Fee-only planners don’t accept commissions or kickbacks and are paid solely by client fees. Most use an “assets under management” model where they manage their clients’ investments and charge an annual fee of about 1 per cent. To make the math work, these financial planners usually require people to have hundreds of thousands of dollars to invest. Otherwise the advisers would reap too little from their fees to justify the hours spent creating financial plans.

This is obviously a problem for people who don’t have enough assets. It also can be a problem for those who do, since the advisers collect their fees year in and year out, regardless of how much advice they’re actually dispensing. Plus, not everyone wants or needs an adviser to invest their money.

It’s even becoming a problem for the planners themselves. A client with a small portfolio may have more complex needs, and require more time, than one with a larger portfolio, but the fees won’t reflect that.

Plus, what these planners are technically charging for investment management can be had for much less from robo-advisers. These digital investment services use computer algorithms to invest and typically charge one-quarter of one per cent.

Planners are essentially giving away the valuable part of what they do, the financial advice, while charging premium prices for the commodity that a machine can essentially do for much less.

Advisers increasingly are recognizing the flaws in this approach and some are exploring alternatives, such as charging flat monthly or quarterly fees, says financial journalist Bob Veres, owner of Inside Information, a site for advisers.

If you’re looking for financial advice that’s not based on the size of your portfolio, here are a few places to check and what you can expect to pay.

_GARRETT PLANNING NETWORK. Planner Sheryl Garrett’s network represents planners willing to charge by the hour, although many also manage assets for a fee. Members are either certified financial planners or they are on track to get the designation, or they’re certified public accountants who have the personal financial specialist credential, which is similar to the CFP. Garrett also requires its planners to be fiduciaries. Hourly fees usually range from $150 to $300. A consultation focused on one subject, such as a portfolio review, may take two or three hours. A comprehensive financial plan that covers taxes, insurance, estate planning, college planning and other relevant topics could require 20 hours or more.

_ADVICE-ONLY FINANCIAL. Financial blogger Harry Sit started his service to connect people with fee-only advisers who just charge for advice and don’t accept asset management fees. Sit’s concern is that advisers who do both will be tempted to push people toward asset management, since it’s more lucrative. Sit charges $200 to help people find fiduciary CFPs who are either local or, if none are available, willing to work remotely. The planners typically charge $100 to $400 an hour.

_ASSOCIATION FOR FINANCIAL Counselling & EDUCATION. Not every tax return requires a CPA and not every financial situation requires a CFP. An accredited financial counsellor or financial fitness coach can be a more affordable alternative. Coaches and counsellors in private practice typically charge $100 to $150 an hour, although many work on a sliding scale, says Rebecca Wiggins, executive director of the association, which grants both credentials. Others are employed by the military, credit unions or other organizations and offer their services for free or at reduced charge, she says. These counsellors or coaches focus on issues relevant to middle- and lower-income Americans, including budgeting, debt management and retirement planning.

“The main thing is that these professionals are affordable, unbiased, and highly trained,” Wiggins says. “Their focus is on the needs of the clients and establishing healthy financial management.”

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This column was provided to The Associated Press by the personal finance website NerdWallet .

Sometimes statistics speak for themselves – 73 per cent of women are ‘unhappy’ with the financial service industry, while 87 per cent of females looking for a financial advisor say they can’t find one they can connect with.

These are the damning results of a survey by StrategyMarketing.ca pointing to a significant disconnect between what women want and what they are actually being offered from the financial services industry. Even though the industry has earmarked women as a valuable demographic, its efforts to actually retain them seem to be falling short.

So what mistakes are they making and what can they do to put them right? Wealth Professional spoke to Paulette Filion and Judy Paradi, the authors of the report and partners at StrategyMarketing.ca, to find out.

One of the biggest issues, it seems, is that financial advisors see women as a niche market and don’t develop a strong female friendly brand. Even though they may design marketing campaigns to appeal to women they aren’t actually doing the things needed to make them happy. Indeed when part of a couple, men are almost two times as likely to be approached by a financial advisor and the male partner is 58 per cent more likely to be seen as the primary contact.

“Male advisors still seem to have the deep down gut feeling that women are a secondary market – not really interested in finances,” commented Paradi.

“Financial advisors consider couples as one client, not two and that’s not true – they are two distinct people,” continued Filion. “With single female clients, advisors think how they’ve approached other clients in the past is the same for these female clients. It may not be. Women face challenges that male clients don’t face and have different communication styles that may appear to indicate hesitation, risk aversion or lack of trust when, actually, nothing could be further from the truth.”

TORONTO _ Choosing a financial adviser is a big decision, yet few investors realize that in most provinces there’s a lack of specific, harmonized regulation of professionals who provide that type of service.

An expert panel set up by the Ontario government has made several recommendations to deal with major concerns, including the myriad of confusing titles and credentials and the lack of an explicit obligation to act in a client’s best interest.

However, that hasn’t stopped investors from increasingly relying on financial advisory services.

A 2016 study by the Canadian Securities Administrators found that 56 per cent of respondents were working with an adviser, up from 43 per cent a decade earlier.

For those considering working with an adviser, experts recommend taking these steps before making a choice:

Check registration

Marian Passmore, director of policy for investor advocacy group FAIR Canada, says securities regulators will only register firms and individuals if they are properly qualified. So check an adviser’s registrations.

“A lot of people don’t do that,” Passmore says. “If they had done so, they may have not lost their money.”

A good place to start, says Passmore, is the CSA’s AreTheyRegistered.ca site, which allows you to search for any licensed investment adviser. Keep in mind, however, that insurance and financial planners won’t be on that site unless they’re also licensed investment advisers.

The CSA website also allows you to see if your licensed adviser has ever been disciplined for misconduct.

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Ask about products and services offered

Not all advisers offer the same products and services and not all have the same expertise, so it’s important for consumers to understand the differences.

For instance, most investment advisers are licensed by either the Mutual Fund Dealers Association or the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada. But while most MFDA-licensed advisers deal only in mutual funds, IIROC advisers can also offer other products including stocks and exchange-traded funds.

In the case of financial planning services whether that’s to reduce taxes, save for a big purchase or to retire in comfort there are dozens of designations and investors will likely have a hard time distinguishing between them.

“IIROC has over 30 credentials that people have but that doesn’t really tell you how difficult or onerous those credentials are,” says Passmore.

The certified planner certification is a reputable designation for those who want a combination of sound investment advice and financial planning know-how, says Ken Kivenko, an investor advocate who is also chairman of the Small Investor Protection Association’s advisory committee.

Because advisers can be paid by salary, commission, a flat fee or a combination of methods, it’s important to make sure you understand how your adviser is paid, how much their services will cost, and how this may affect the advice you’re given.

For instance, many advisers are paid a commission for every product they sell, which may influence an adviser to recommend one investment over another, according to the CSA.

But keeping fees and other investment-related costs low has been proven to be one of the best and easiest ways to help your savings grow.

A fund with low fees, such as indexed mutual funds and exchange-traded funds, has an automatic head start over higher-cost rivals for returns and compounded over years the advantage can grow even more powerful.

Envision that you have already accomplished your most important goal for your business today. How does that make you feel? Act as if it has already been done. The message is clear, the best advisors spend more time on servicing clients BECAUSE they have invested the time and energy to put their processes in place. The one critical process is putting your value promise in writing and articulating it with confidence.

With major regulatory changes, increasing demands from clients and changing communication with them, clients are looking for measurable value for the advice they receive. How do advisor’s complete it in other parts of the world? The 5 most highly regulated countries from a financial advisor’s perspective are Australia, United Kingdom, South Africa, United States and Canada. Let’s look at seven key strategies based on research on what successful advisor’s implement in providing value to their clients.

Time – Hours planned in working on their business. In a one year time frame – Project 100 – (you need 100 hours to implement change into your business such as updating your value proposition, going fee based or implementing new technologies. It is called project 100 because you will need to spend 2-3 hours per week for one year or 100 hours on building key practice management processes. The first step is to plan them in your calendar each week 2 hours working on your business. Plan the time first. For example every Wednesday from 8-10 or 11am working on the business implementing processes.

Business models -your goals , your clients and your business model . Does your business goals align with your clients? Managing a large financial advisory business is great if it matches your ideal client profile and creates a win-win relationship. When consulting with advisor’s, they have stated they want to build their practice and manage 100-200 million of assets or more. Then they want to slow down and work less. A business model does not work that way. Find a person (coach, consultant, mentor) who can help you build the business model and ideal clientele you want to create.

Client feedback – what clients value , without this all else will be average. According to Business Health Pty Ltd. businesshealth.com.au , ( Business Health, Key Value Drivers US 2013) only 15% of advisors in the United States have a formal feedback processes for their clients.Those advisors that have a formal feedback system earn up to 52% more than advisor’s who do not have a feedback system. A similar study had similar results by the USA FPA Research and Practice Institute study – Future of Practice Management -December 2013. If you want to become a “ideal client focused advisor” then build a formal feedback process into your client reviews.

Ideal client profile – creating a win-win on communication, compensation and expectations. What is your ideal future client profile. Have it detailed and do a case study and put it on your website for the world to see.

Ideal client service capacity –The 60 / 40 principle. More than 60% of your time should be spent seeing ideal clients- very few advisor’s do that because they use the excuse of too much administration and lack of processes. A quick way to find your capacity for your clients is to add up the number of hours you work each year, say 1800 hours. Then find out what percent of time you service clients. Segment the clients into your main groups or segments. Then find out how much time you spend servicing each segment and add it up. The math may reveal some interesting capacity issues.

Document– Put your value proposition in writing and make it a process. Make a list of ALL your services and how you deliver value through those services. The critical part is the documented process that you use with clients to help them solve their problems. The document is not to showcase you, but the clearly outline how you uncover clients problems and how you solve them.

Ongoing services document – Build your client experience document . As a client what do I get for the fee I pay each year? Consider re-engage existing clients with an innovative and detailed review process and adding more value and services. Then build a document to show clients your detailed process for delivering your “value added review service”.

After all, it’s all about your ideal clients. Don’t waste any time. Put this on your to do list this week!

Always check with your compliance office and or branch manager before implementing any marketing idea. The information does not constitute a recommendation for the sale or purchase of any securities or insurance.

Source: Grant Hicks – President and National Director of Practice Management at Advisor Practice Management

Find out why the “Guerrilla Marketing” series has sold over 21 million copies worldwide and is printed in 62 languages. “Guerrilla Marketing” has been proven to work for small business and financial advisory firms from around the world. Learn out how you can apply these time tested secrets and processes to grow your IDEAL business.